NCI will implement President Barack Obama’s directive to ramp up the initiative in precision medicine, even if Congress doesn’t appropriate specific funds for this purpose, Institute Director Harold Varmus told members of the National Cancer Advisory Board Feb. 12.
In the absence of the federal funding, cancer research will be leaning on private funders. But few private funders have the freedom to ask fundamental questions—questions whose answers may not have an immediate clinical impact but can dramatically advance scientific knowledge.
